“Is it good or bad that I got you involved in it, Wyatt? I worry about that all the time.” She put her head way back and closed her eyes.
“I honestly don’t know. I think it’s good, but when I was first sick and had a remission after the early chemotherapy, I thought I was going to get well then and didn’t.”
“ ‘How Much Can a Rabbit Pull?’ ” She brought her head slowly down and looked at me gravely.
“What are you talking about?”
“My friend’s daughter is in fifth grade and had to do a science project. She made a kind of little wagon that fit onto the back of her pet rabbit, and kept putting more and more stones into it and giving the rabbit a pinch to see how much it could pull. That was her project. Now it’s yours. How much can Wyatt pull? I don’t know what I’ve done to you or whether I did anything at all. My brother’s back and is all right, but you’re staying here because now you’re having the dreams. God, I wish we were back in Switzerland together. I want to be on that hill we climbed, watching those skiers fly by.” She sighed and took my hand. “I love you, Wyatt. I want you to live a hundred years.”
In life, Strayhorn had been the most well-informed person I’d ever known. In death he continued to be, but now he was also terrific company. Brilliant yet easygoing, he was happy to talk about anything. My general impression was that he most liked just hanging around and chatting. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me, but his calmness seemed proportionate to my understanding the answers. So long as that continued, both of us could take it easy for the time being.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
His casualness threw me off and lulled me into thinking things were somehow going to work out. His friendship, gifts, and frequent wonders sometimes let me not see the real circumstances of my life in the gloss and glare of all I was experiencing. His cosmic show-and-tell stopped me from remembering what was important or being vigilant about essential matters. He seduced me with charm, and like the most innocent, greedy child, I fell for it one hundred percent.
Until I learned Ian McGann was dead.
I had spent the night on Santorini, or rather my dreaming self had. At sunset Phil and I sat at an outdoor restaurant, drinking ouzo and eating freshly fried calamari, entertained by a staggeringly beautiful view over the purpling sea. The view was as rewarding as I had always imagined. My friend spoke of the volcano that had exploded here long ago, what it had done to the people, and how it had affected the way of the world for centuries afterward. My dreams were now so all-encompassing that I could smell the spicy evening air and feel rough pebbles under my bare feet. Strayhorn seemed as content as I to sit there silently and listen to the only sounds around us—the clank of silverware on plates, the sad faraway call of a single gull out over the water.
As we were finishing, our waiter came up and spoke quietly to Strayhorn. I thought he was asking who should be given the bill, but Phil said nothing, just nodded once, and the waiter walked away.
“I have to do something. Stay here as long as you like. You know how to get back.” He winked at me and walked up the steps out of the restaurant. I tipped my glass to him and called out a lazy goodbye.
I don’t know how much longer I was there, but the sound of the ringing phone woke me. Opening my eyes to a pitch-black room, I looked at the green glow of my watch and slowly understood it was three A.M. Jesse Chapman was calling, his voice very high and fast with fear. Ian McGann had died half an hour before. His girlfriend, Miep, had gone to the bathroom. When she got back into bed, she leaned over to kiss him. His arm was thrown across his forehead; his eyes were open, staring at nothing. At first she thought he was joking. Before notifying the police, she called Jesse. She didn’t want to talk about it, only wanted him to know. When he asked what she was going to do, she said she’d lie in bed with Ian and tell him goodbye. Then she hung up.
Jesse was calling from his living room, his hand cupped above his mouth so that he wouldn’t wake his wife. He said, three times, “You said it was all right! You said he told you everything was okay for us!”
“What difference does it make what he said? All bets are off now. You were the one who told me not to trust him in the first place, Jesse! Why are you surprised?”
“I’m not surprised. I just don’t want to die, asshole!”
“Asshole doesn’t want to die either.”
“Then what are we going to do? Can you find Strayhorn? Talk to him?”
“I think so. No. I don’t know. This may change everything. Why did he do it? What was the point?”
“Point? For God’s sake, he doesn’t have a fucking point, Wyatt. He’s Death! Death comes and kills you. Period. I told you that.”
In the background I heard a woman’s voice. Jesse’s dropped to tenderness as he told his wife not to worry, everything was okay. I waited while they spoke, then he said he’d have to call me back and abruptly hung up. I put down the phone and lay down. Closing my eyes, I fell instantly asleep.
Immediately I recognized where I was, though I’d not been in the room for almost thirty years. It was the basement of my hometown church where, at Mother’s insistence, I had spent years going to Sunday school. I was sitting at that familiar little round table along with the other kids who had been in my classes there. However, the teacher was not bad-tempered Mr. Crown or nice Miss Turton; it was Woody Woodpecker.
In that famously crazy high-pitched voice, he said to me, “ ‘I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.
‘Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?’ ”
I said nothing, though I remembered the words exactly. Galatians 4:20 and 21. I had been made to memorize them for this class, though the teacher at that time was Miss Turton, not a cartoon bird. He gave that annoying laugh again and continued.
“ ‘I am the light that shines over everything. I am the All. From me the All came forth, and to me the All has returned.’ Finish the passage please, Wyatt Leonard.” His voice changed to a perfect imitation of Miss Turton’s.
Without a moment’s hesitation I said, “ ‘Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Pick up a stone, and you will find me there.’ ”
“Very good, Wyatt!”
“Why are you here like this?”
“I told you, ‘I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice—’ ”
“Phil, why did you kill McGann? You said it wouldn’t happen as long as I understood your answers!”
“Don’t be naïve, baby; I have a job to do. Sometimes I can put it off for a while, and that’s what I did with him. He got to live a little longer and had a lot of joy. That’s good, isn’t it? Would you rather he be hit by a truck? The man was supposed to die a long time ago, but I let him see Venice with the woman he loved. It was the best time of his life. He even died with a hard-on!” Winking at me, he pushed back from the table and ran a hand over the bright red comb on his head.
“Phil, tell me what’s going on. How does this thing really work?”
“Formal question?”
“Yes, damn it, just answer!”
“All right. It’s simple—I have a job and have to do it to everyone sooner or later. It’s my decision how. Naturally, I like some of the people; others I don’t. The ones I like, I try to do it to as easily and comfortably as possible: let them die in their sleep at eighty, or have a stroke on the tennis court so they’re dead before they know what hits them. That sort of thing. The people I don’t like, suffer. Too bad for them.